Rhonda Harris, Richmond council candidate

Rhonda Harris says all the right things. Her wardrobe is sharp. But don’t dismiss her as style over substance. Harris, 52, says she has been driven to make a difference since she first came to Richmond in the 1970s.

“Let me take you back. When I moved to South Third Street, there was flowers, trees. There was families. We were a community,” Harris said in a low, raspy voice.

“And soon, before my eyes, I witnessed my neighborhood fall, due to drugs.”

(photo by Ashley Hopkinson)

She tapped her tall brown boots on the floor of her campaign office and continued.

“I was coming home and seeing drug dealers on the corner. I saw abandoned homes. And because it was next door, down the street, around the corner, I felt real obligated to help,” she said. “This was in the ’90s.”

Harris says she started buying abandoned houses that dealers were using to shoot up and sell drugs. Harris renovated the houses and rented them to low-income families or organizations that served a community need, such as child care.